Soft alkali metals as for example, lithium, sodium and the like, are extremely reactive to oxygen and moisture in the air. Under the normal atmospheric conditions, it has not been possible to machine these soft alkali, metals with a power tool. Thus, for example, there has been no account heretofore of successfully fabricating a rotating lithium disk electrode for studying the electrochemical reactions of lithium batteries.
This is important as it would be desirable to improve the performance of the lithium anode in secondary lithium batteries electrode would provide well defined hydrodynamics and mass transfer conditions and might be used to determine the transport and kinetic properties of the lithium electrode reactions during the charge and discharge cycles. The information that can be examined by the rotating lithium disk electrodes includes: the reaction rate constants, reaction order, exchange current density, Tafel slopes and diffusion coefficients of lithium salts (LiAsF.sub.6, LiClO.sub.4, LiAlCl.sub.4, etc.). These parameters are useful in the design of the lithium batteries and in predicting their charge/discharge capabilities.